


a fleeting beating of hearts

by perfectpro



Category: The Originals (TV), The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, F/M, Psychological Torture, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-24
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-03-16 17:40:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28960362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perfectpro/pseuds/perfectpro
Summary: Caroline is captured by witches and forced to endure betrayal by the one she trusts most. Klaus won't rest until she's safe again.
Relationships: Caroline Forbes/Klaus Mikaelson
Comments: 9
Kudos: 127





	a fleeting beating of hearts

**Author's Note:**

> Title from The Decemberist's January Hymn, the sound of which doesn't match this work at all, but I think the lyrics I've used are fitting all the same.

Awareness washed over her slowly, first coming in the sensation of pain biting down at her wrists. Caroline flinched away from it before it was a conscious decision, but pulling it only made the restraints tighten and she gasped. Twisting her head, she looked around the room, trying to orient herself and find something to recognize in her surroundings.

It was absent of any identifying marks, just a plain cement floor and a steel door across from the wall that she was chained to. The manacles that wrapped around her wrists and ankles didn’t look like anything special, but she could tell they were somehow been spelled or infused with vervain. In the corner, there was a steel chair, and everything about the space felt so clinical.

Even just lifting her wrists took an enormous amount of effort, despite the fact that there was slack in the chain. She’d been weighed down, trapped, caged in _again_ after she swore that she’d never let herself be caught by surprise again. Poor little Caroline, the damsel in distress, waiting to be rescued once more. 

She wondered how long she’d been there. There weren’t any windows for her to guess the rise of the sun or to know where on the lunar cycle they are. The last thing that she remembered was leaving the farmers market, bags laden with fresh produce that she’d picked out so carefully, intent on making the best eggplant parmesan for Klaus that night for dinner.

_Klaus._

Just the thought of his name brought her relief. He would notice she was gone, and he was paranoid on a normal day even when they didn’t have any known threats. A few months ago, when she’d left her phone on silent during the day, he’d driven all the way from New Orleans and shown up at her office, nearly out of his mind with some combination of rage and worry until he saw her siting behind her desk.

If that was what happened when she misses a few phone calls, surely he’d come looking for her when she missed their dinner date.

Dinner date. Because that was a thing they were doing now. Or, trying, at the very least.

Caroline had been resistant to the idea every time he’d pressed. She wanted to live as a human for as long as she could manage, or at least appear to. She’s going to have to move soon, of course, because her face has been too young here for too long, and people are starting to ask her what her skin care routine is.

A local newscaster in Jackson, Mississippi had seemed like the perfect job when she’d first seen it advertised. With a few compelled transcripts, she had everything she needed. Klaus had laughed himself silly when she first told him about it. 

“I keep telling you, love, you’ll never be satisfied by life in a small town,” he’d told her along the riverwalk as they watched the Mississippi pass them by, as though Jackson was as tiny as Mystic Falls had been all those years ago.

Jackson wasn’t a small town, though, and she wanted to try. He was endlessly amused by her life, if only because she always tried to blend in. She never wanted to show her true self, and he acquiesced every time she scolded him for trying to rush her.

Three hours between Jackson and New Orleans, and he’d talked her into trying out the relationship that they had always talked about. And she gave in after a surprisingly short time, because if she was honest with herself that had been why she’d allowed herself to go so deep into the South in the first place.

If she’d been taken in Rochester or New Haven, maybe it would have taken some time for word to spread to him. Bonnie would have been the first to know, surely, and she’d have started the search. Better for this, whatever it was, to happen now, when she knew that Klaus would come for her soon if he wasn’t already on his way. The idea of it almost brought a smile to her face.

-x-

Hours later, a redheaded woman came in, dressed in a gray pantsuit. “Ms. Forbes,” she said casually, as though they were in a business meeting and Caroline wasn’t shackled to the wall.

“What the fuck do you want from me?” Caroline spat, a current of fear running through her as she asked, because it had been years since anything like this happened to her. Her life was quiet; she kept away from the supernatural community as a whole, other than Klaus and Bonnie. There was no reason for anyone to want her; she hadn’t done anything worth noticing.

The woman didn’t respond while she closed the door, a knife in her other hand. “I just need a sample.”

As she approached, Caroline pressed her back to the wall, wishing for all the world that it would crumble beneath her, knowing that even if it did the manacles would still be too heavy for her to make an escape. “A sample of what?” she asked, eyes glued to the knife.

Not even trying to make sure she’s out of reach, the woman stood before her. Clearly she trusted the restraints, and for good reason. With a steady hand, she reached forward and pressed the knife to Caroline’s wrist, not slashing through flesh and muscle, just pressing the tip until a drop of blood appeared on the silvering blade. 

“This will be more than enough,” she announced, and before Caroline could process what was happened, a jolt of pain shocked through her, slicing through her insides. She lost consciousness even as she tried to cling to it, bereft of her senses in a moment.

-x-

The next time she wakes up, it looks like the same room that she originally came to in. Shivering, she tries to remember the woman. Red hair, pulled back into a neat ponytail, wearing a gray pantsuit with black pumps. She looked like she was dressed for a day at the office.

They’d only taken a drop of blood from her, at least as far as she could remember. What did they need her blood for? Why did they need so little of it? She felt dizzy and would have given anything to be sitting on the chair in the corner. 

She took stock of herself. Sore legs, a burning sensation in the back of her throat that meant it had been twelve hours since she’d last fed. No marks on her body, other than the prick on her wrist. It hadn’t healed yet, even though such a small injury should have gone away instantaneously.

They must have needed her blood for a spell. That was the only thing she could think of that made any sense when she considered the single drop they’d taken and the open wound.

Even if she was human, the mark would be clear with dried blood as it clotted, but as it was it still looked fresh. Hours had passed, though, and she could tell by the bloodlust she felt starting to course through her veins. Usually, she tried to only feed twice a day, a blood bag before leaving the house in the morning and one more before bed. The routine made her feel in control and kept her on schedule, even if Klaus did roll his eyes at how she limited herself. 

If it had been twelve hours, he knew she was gone.

The thought relaxed her somewhat, as terrified and confused as she was. How long would it take for him to find her? If whoever had taken her was good enough to have vervain infused chains, they’d know enough to have a cloaking spell cast over her. Those could be overcome with not much difficulty, depending on how talented the caster was. 

An hour to convince himself that she was in danger, maybe half an hour to contact a witch. How long to break the cloaking spell? How care had they taken her? How long until he’d storm in with yellow flashing eyes that promised death to anyone who touched her?

Just as she thought of it, the door swung open. Klaus stood before her with his dark golden curls, his infuriating smirk, and his blue eyes.

Blue eyes. The first clue that she was safe, that he’d taken care of everything. Surely whatever was outside this room was blood-splattered, bodies carelessly littering the floor to show the path he’d taken to get to her.

“I was thinking it was about time that you showed up,” she told him, almost laughing with the relief of it.

“I’m here,” he told her, looking over her carefully. 

Undoubtedly, he was looking over her to make sure no harm had come to her, doing the same visual examination that she’d done when she woke up. His motions were slow and controlled, and he reached out to cup her face in his hand. 

Sagging forward into his touch, she allowed herself to breathe easy once more. “Well, let’s get out of here,” she said at last, tearing her gaze away from his eyes to the door he’d left open. The fact that he hadn’t taken care of the manacles first thing was curious, but it had been years since she’d needed rescuing. Maybe they were both out of practice.

“Oh, love,” he said carefully, running a thumb along her jaw, “I’m afraid that’s not why I’ve come.”

-x-

Klaus had let himself into Caroline’s apartment fifteen minutes before time they were supposed to meet, but traffic had been light, and she wouldn’t mind. It was only once he was inside that someone felt off. Her scent was curiously vague, as though she hadn’t returned since she’d left in the morning.

Odd, because Caroline had mentioned her only errand was going to the farmer’s market in the morning, and then she would just be doing chores around the house. Also, on nights where she insisted on cooking, usually she aimed for dinner to be on the table at their agreed upon time, and she was such a perfectionist that she had never timed it wrong. 

Checking his phone, he found no new calls or messages that had come on the drive north. His text thread with Caroline from the morning and previous day had been focused on the impending weekend, the last thing she’d sent him a photo of her produce haul.

He’d responded with a cheeky eggplant based pun, something that she usually would have been frustrated enough by that she’d have called to tell him to knock it off until he could follow through. 

When she hadn’t replied, he’d assumed she’d been driving home and then gotten busy with chores. As he thought of it, he looked out the window above the kitchen sink to the apartment complex’s parking lot. Caroline’s space was still empty, something he hadn’t thought much about when he’d arrived.

The cabinet beneath the sink was open, though, and he looked down to see her cleaning products along with the rubber gloves she used. They were still in their compartment, not laying next to the sink like she usually put them after she finished scrubbing things down.

Because it was Caroline’s apartment, it would have appeared spotless if he hadn’t known where to look. The dishes were clean, but they were sitting on the drainboard and not put away. Two pairs of heels sat on the mat by the door and not on the shoe rack they were directly next to. Tellingly, a few pieces of mail sat on the table instead of the file folder she’d hung on the wall.

By the time he’d finished looking around, it was seven, and she still hadn’t come home. She was never late. Something was desperately wrong.

-x-

“This can’t be real,” Caroline whispered to herself, but she knew that the scene before her was reality instead of a nightmare. She’d counted her fingers to check. Still, though, she couldn’t believe that Klaus was sitting in front of her, legs crossed as he left her in chains.

“Because I can’t be this cruel?” he asked her, wearing an expression that wasn’t entirely unfamiliar. He had just never before directed it at her.

Klaus could be cruel; she knew that. She had always known that, since Jenna’s death in the forest when he’d broken his curse. Having his wolf had only made him stronger, made him more able to seek vengeance against his enemies, and she knew he orchestrated it to be slow rather that swift. He enjoyed the suffering that he caused, but these days that suffering was deserved. He only attacked when provoked now, content to rule over the kingdom he’d carved out.

Turning her head away so she didn’t have to look at him, she stared at the door. He’d closed it when he pulled the chair up, and now she wished it was open. Was there anyone here to hear her screams? Was there anyone who would care?

He watched her through a moment of silence before speaking. “We both know who I am, what I’ve done. Did you truly think me incapable of this?”

Yes. Not incapable of cruelty, but incapable of this. In all the years they had known each other, she had watched countless horrors that had taken place at his hands. Had even participated in a few herself, though she didn’t like to think of the bloodshed that she’d left behind.

“You’d never hurt me,” she said, but even as she said it, she wondered if it were true. He loved her. He hadn’t said as much, not lately, but what else could he feel for her after all the years between them? She’d been ready to try, ready to stop traveling around without family or friends. She’d thought about moving straight to New Orleans, but she still wanted her own space. Jackson was a compromise, still something that could just be her own, while letting herself have him close enough for once.

The chair scraped backwards as he stood, approaching her with an inscrutable. “Wouldn’t I, love?” he asked, reaching out and wrapping a hand around the wrist that wasn’t bleeding.

With that, he twisted it harshly, and she heard the grinding and then the sound of bone breaking. She cried out, clenching her hands into fists, nails digging into her palm until the scent of blood reached her.

-x-

A few phone calls later, Klaus had been able to get in touch with a local witch through Kol. Freya had been exactly no help at all since there wasn’t anything she could use to find Caroline with in the compound. On the rare occasion that Caroline came to him, she had never left anything behind. The shirt that she’d slept in a few weeks ago the last time she was there actually belonged to him, and Freya had said it hadn’t given off any kind of signal, not even a weak one.

He’d grabbed her hairbrush from the dresser before he’d left, figuring that a few strands of hair in addition to an object she used daily could only help. A locator spell first, of course, and if she was cloaked then Freya was already on her way to assist.

Elijah had insisted, once he’d discovered why Niklaus had been bellowing on the phone with their sister. Klaus knew that his elder brother was vaguely fond of Caroline, partly for her organizational skills and the strict boundaries she kept with her relationships, but mostly because her presence made Klaus slightly less murderous than usual.

Armed with the hairbrush and the reassurance that his siblings would not be long, he drove across the city, sure that if the witch hadn’t already prepared everything else that was necessary, he would destroy her entire coven. 

Anything that prevented him from getting to Caroline was an obstacle that would be dealt with, without exception.

Luckily, the witch was competent. With Kol, one could never tell what kind of company he was in the habit of keeping. She accepted the hairbrush without comment, pulling a long blond strand from the bristles and studying it carefully before nodding. Blood was often needed for these types of spells, but Caroline had no relatives, and thankfully the witch made no mention of it.

“She will be revealed,” she intoned before bringing a lighter and watching as the flame climbed.

-x-

Even though the wound on her wrist was still open, it didn’t seem to have impacted how the rest of her body healed. Which wasn’t necessarily a good thing when that just meant that she’d had multiple bones shattered, over and over again. The only merciful thing was that with no windows in the room; at least she wasn’t in danger of coming into contact with sunlight.

Her voice was hoarse from screaming, and after so many hours the effort seemed pointless. The pain was never ending, and when it did end it was only bound to start again. Whoever this was before her, because it was not Klaus, it could not be Klaus. 

She knew Klaus, was one of the only people who walked the earth who could say so, and this monster before he was not him. She knew him, the way that he looked at her, curious and bemused and slightly awestruck, as though he thought that he was the lucky one between them. 

He broke her arm once more, deaf to her screams, or perhaps just enjoyed the tortured sounds he could wring from her mouth. 

Before this, the only kind of tortured sounds he was interested in pulling from her lips were in bed, or perhaps on the couch in her living room. She’d glowered at him after they’d ruined it, and in the morning a new one was delivered to her door, identical except for how it wasn’t stained. Those memories seemed so far away, though it had only been a few weeks. Much more real were her current experiences, as impossible as they seemed. 

“Please, please; you can’t mean this,” she begged, too tired to stare directly into his eyes, or maybe just afraid of what she would see in them.

Gripping her by the shoulders with one hand, his other lifted her chin until she was looking at him. “Don’t you know that I ruin everything I touch?” he inquired, and maybe she had known that.

Of the millennium he had lived, how many had been in his life and made it out alive? Did she expect that she could be any different? “You don’t mean this,” she continued, needing to believe it and unsure if she still did. “You love me.”

Breathing a laugh through his nose, he stoked his thumb once more along her jaw, the touch aching tender and sweet. The same touch as he used on her when she woke to morning light streaming through the windows when they curled around each other in bed. “Perhaps once,” he agreed amicably enough, and then he plunged a stake through her shoulder.

-x-

The witch, despite all of her confidence, had turned up nothing.

“I can remove a simple cloaking spell,” she said, staring at the ash that had remained immobile no matter how loudly she had chanted at it. “This is something else entirely.”

He’d left her alive, partly at Kol’s request, and partly because he’d gotten a call from Freya, summoning him back to Caroline’s apartment. She and Elijah were waiting when he got there, the siblings deep in conversation before they noticed his approach.

“No luck with tracking her?” Elijah asked, which was such a stupid question that Klaus didn’t bother to dignify it with a response, just stalked up the stairs to Caroline’s place, opening it with the key she’d given him only three months ago.

Elijah found no more clues than he had earlier, but he watched Freya as she walked carefully through the space, feeling it out with magic instead of their vampiric senses. She paused at Caroline’s key rack by the door, lifting her space set of car keys up. “You said her car wasn’t here,” she remembered.

“It’s not,” Klaus responded, looking out to her empty parking space.

“Well let’s find where she’s left it,” she suggested.

-x-

Years ago, she might have been stronger. It had been a frequent occurrence in her life once. The capture, the pain and interrogation, waiting on her rescue to eventually come through. Every big bag who stepped in Mystic Falls who was interested in Elena always seemed to use Caroline as the easiest target. Not that Elena much cared.

She was just bitter. Elena cared, of course, but not as much as she would have if it were Damon’s or Stefan’s undead lives at stake. At stake, get it? Because she’s a vampire, because that’s one of the ways that she can die, and she’s being staked.

Thankfully, since she’d left Mystic Falls, she’d been able to stay out of that kind of thing. Which was good, of course, except for the fact that everything felt worse than it would have a few decades ago when her body was more accustomed to pain.

The stake that Klaus had left in her shoulder was a source of constant, throbbing pain. He’d dug it into her flesh and left, leaving her to scream to no one.

“This can’t be happening,” she plead to herself, digging her nails into her palms just to give her a different area of pain to focus on. Klaus, the stake, the wound on her wrist. None of it was possible. She hadn’t done anything to attract attention to herself; she was relatively unknown in the area. How had someone found her?

Because it had to be someone else who was doing this. It couldn’t be Klaus.

-x-

Freya brought them to the farmer’s market that Caroline frequented, claiming that it always had the freshest fruits and vegetables. It had long since been shut down, but Caroline’s car sat in the parking lot still, and a quick search of the area brought them to her purse, toppled over next to the reusable grocery bags she was so fond of. The sight made Klaus’s blood boil.

They searched more thoroughly, trying to find anything less obvious that they might have missed. No scent was fresh, though, and it was clear that Caroline was long gone.

It was Freya, sensitive to magic and the objects that it touched, who found what looked like a guitar pick carved out of some type of rock. It had fallen next to Caroline’s purse, and she picked it up gingerly, feeling it vibrate in her hand. “What’s this?” she asked, passing it to Elijah when he held out his hand.

Studying it, Elijah said, “Something they should have left behind.”

-x-

“Why is it so hard to believe, love?” he asked from where he sat across from her.

Pulling herself up to face him, she watched him, trying to pick out some kind of falsehood. Trying to find anything about him that was wrong. Instead, she only saw him, or perhaps a perfect likeness. With each hour that passed, with every broken bone, it was increasingly difficult to believe that her experience wasn’t true.

“You’d never do this,” she gasped, nose burning with vervain. He’d applied some kind of salve above her lip, and now every breath was difficult.

Tilting his head and observing her, her finally leaned forward and propped his elbows on his knees, resting his chin in his hands. “Everyone you've ever loved has disappointed you. Stefan, Elena, even your father. Why shouldn’t I be on the list as well? You must be very difficult to love.”

Caroline flinched as though he’d struck her. 

“There it is. The truth that you’ve been so afraid of,” he said thoughtfully, watching as he uncovered her greatest fear. “I wondered when I’d find something that could hurt you more than vervain restraints and physical blows. To think that it’s something so mundane, so base… I’d have thought you better than that.” A cruel smile twisted its way onto his lips. “Or perhaps I never did, and you’ve always been such a simple creature, desperate to be worth someone’s consideration.”

He moved in front of her, close enough that it seemed as though he was about to kiss her. The sight was something she had gotten used to since she’d moved, and she experienced a further betrayal when he twisted the stake in further before removing it entirely.

“No need to leave it in. We’ll have you damaged enough as it is,” he says breezily before sweeping out of the room.

-x-

Having reached the coordinates that Freya had finally been able to access through the stone they’d found, Klaus couldn’t help thinking that if it hadn’t been for the two men outside who were obviously guarding the building, the place would have looked like any other strip mall off the highway.

Whatever this place was, whoever her captors were, he was sure that they weren’t prepared for a member of the Original family. Much less two, whenever Elijah caught up with him.

Two snapped necks and one broken lock later, he swung the door open and watched as a woman at the front stepped backward and gave herself away by looking down a hallway. He tore out her heart, not paying attention to whether she was a vampire or human. That was the wonderful thing about that trick; it worked on whoever, regardless of one’s supernatural affiliation.

She’d managed to trigger something before he’d killed her, and an alarm rang out overheard, echoing through the facility. There was a clatter of footsteps coming from below, clearly a basement level that he’d need to search once he took care of them.

The fight was a blur, as he didn’t need to think before dismantling the guards that came sprinting up the stairs. It was practically child’s play, how unprepared for him, regardless of the wooden bullets that flew. If he were any other vampire, it would have been a different story. Plunging his hand into one’s chest, ripping free a beating heart, he thought that perhaps it would be prudent to leave one of them alive for answers.

They were only guards, though, just the muscle of the operation, and without a second thought he let the last of them drop. He looked between the hallway on his left and the door to the stairwell they’d come from.

“Take the basement; we’ll search this level,” Elijah said from behind him, and Klaus turned to see his brother and Freya standing in the doorway, investigating the scene.

He didn’t bother to question the decision, rushing down the stairs to find a hallway lined with metal doors along either side. He paused for the first time since arriving, straining to hear anything that would give him a clue to where she was being held.

“This can’t be happening,” he heard Caroline whisper. “It’s not real. None of it. None of it’s real.” Heart beating in his throat, he rushed to the room that it was coming from, ripping the door off its hinges in the process. What he saw nearly made him go wild with rage. She was chained to the wall, and the scent of vervain clung to the room, possibly through the vents. Her skin was gray; she obviously hadn’t fed recently, but even considering the morning blood bag she’d had, this stage of hunger was unusually advanced. He didn’t see any immediately obvious signs of physical pain, but those could have healed already.

Half starved and dazed, she raised her head to see him, and he went to her in a moment. “Love,” he whispered, knowing that he wouldn’t be able to rest until he’d destroyed those that had caused this.

Meeting his eyes, Caroline flinched as though he’d struck her.

-x-

After the long sessions of physical and psychological abuse, was this what they’d decided would be most effective in breaking her? This vision that she’d first expected. Klaus, blood splattered and with yellow flashing eyes, looking as though he would take on the world for her.

As though she could ever be worth so much.

“Please don’t,” she begged, pressing her back into the wall. “I know this can’t be you. Just kill me, please.” The idea of Klaus being sweet to her instead of clinical and cruel was too much to hope for, would hurt too much when it undoubtedly ended. Breaking her bones wouldn’t hurt half this badly, she thought, unable to look at him again, unable to face what she’d lost.

“I’m here, love; it’s me,” he told her, reaching for the cuff on her wrist only for her to wretch it away. 

“Just kill me,” she repeated, tears stinging at her eyes. How long would she have to endure this? Would they kill her, or just leave her here, hours of torture by the man she loved interspersed with periods alone where it was all she could think about? Death would be sweeter than being free, living her life and knowing that this was what Klaus thought of her.

Leaning over to snatch her wrist back, he pulled at the restraints with all of his strength. There was vervain infused into it somehow, but he was a hybrid and not just a vampire. He pulled until the metal snapped and she was freed, one wrist after the other before taking care of her ankles as well. Even once she was freed, she cowered before him, too afraid to move.

Her words caught him off-guard clearly, but he bit into his wrist and offered it to her, wrapping a hand on her neck to bring her toward it. “You’re starving; you need to feed,” he said, and there was no compulsion to the words but she couldn’t resist the fresh blood offered.

Sinking her fangs into the flesh, she clung to him, willing to give into whatever this was if they were willing to feed her. She was willing to beg for death, but her will for survival was too strong. As she ate, her wrist stung, and she pulled back to watch the wound finally close over, healed at last.

-x-

“Just kill me,” Caroline asked him, practically begged, twice. As though hearing it once hadn’t been enough to break his heart.

Death would come for whoever had done this, but something slow, something that he could savor. Too quick and it would be merciful, not nearly painful enough. Far better than they surely deserved.

Thankfully, the blood seemed to help, and while she was still weak, she was able to stand without leaning on the wall. He needed to get her out of here, somewhere safe, tucked into her bed. Even better would be to get her to the compound in New Orleans, though he new it was too far to reach tonight.

She looked at her wrist for a long moment, where he saw a dot of dried blood. “Is this real?” she finally asked, looking as though she wasn’t sure if she wanted to lean into his touch or cringe away from it.

For the first time, she met his eyes and didn’t balk, watching how the blue was dominated by yellow. 

Hadn’t this been what she’d expected? His clothes streaked with blood, a wildness to him that wouldn’t be contained until he knew she was safe. 

“I’m here, love,” he whispered, and exhaled slowly when she threw herself into his arms.

-x-

On the drive back, Caroline sat quietly and watched the signs on the highway. “I felt like I had been there for weeks,” she whispered. When Klaus told her that it was Saturday in the early hours of the morning, she hadn’t believed him until he’d shown her on his phone.

“Freya says the magic they used on you changed your perception of time. They warped it in a way. The spell was designed to torture,” he bit out, watching her carefully from the corner of his eye.

She laughed once, humorlessly. “Whoever designed it sure did their job.” She clenched her jaw, eyes shining when they drove under streetlights. Her nails dug into the upholstery, trying to use it to ground herself, to convince herself that this was still what was real.

Only an hour more until they returned to Jackson. The first hour had passed in silence, with Caroline unwilling or unable to say what she had endured there. Elijah and Freya had taken care of the facility, uncovering the purpose was a sort of lab for witches to experiment on supernatural creatures.

They’d left no one alive. Klaus almost thought they’d been too kind.

“Like at Whitmore,” Caroline said in response, and Klaus made a note to ask her more about her college years later, at a more appropriate time.

According to Freya, whatever spell they had used didn’t just alter the subject’s perception of time. It was meant to torture, to show their worst fears, to leave them unable to distinguish reality from whatever hallucinations they were left with. When Caroline had fed from Klaus, ingesting his blood had added a new component into the spell and thrown it off balance. 

While Caroline was a young vampire, Klaus new that she’d experienced her fair share of horrors. Her first decade was spent catching snatches of happiness in between saving her friends and enduring whatever horrors Mystic Falls had attracted at the time. It was only after she’d left that her life had calmed down.

She stared out the windows, counting the mile markers, waiting quietly to be returned home. When Klaus had taken her hand earlier, she had accepted it without comment but her body had stiffened.

When she’d relaxed her muscles, it had been with conscious effort. 

Between that and what she’d said when he’d first found her, he knew that at least some of her hallucinations had to have included him. He ached to bring it up, to share in her suffering, but he knew that she would only withdraw from the subject. As it was, he would have to wait.

-x-

After getting a few blood bags in her system and washing up, Caroline thought she looked almost normal. Her skin seemed healthy, and the bags under her eyes that she’d seen in the in the sun visor mirror in the car weren’t as sunken it. No one who didn’t know her well would be able to tell that anything had ever happened.

Klaus watched her, seated in the armchair in the corner of her room, his steady silence growing to fill the space. She’d always thought him like a lion with his golden curls, authority rolling off him in waves, enough power emanating from him that he never needed to remind others of his influence. Now, he reminded her of a snake, tightly coiled and waiting for a reason to strike. 

Their eyes met in the bathroom mirror as Caroline wrapped her hair in a towel. 

“Do you need anything?” he asked at last, the same thing he’d asked when they come through the door.

Then, her answer had been basic: food and a shower.

Now, most of her base needs taken care of, Caroline didn’t know what she needed. It was the time of night that was really early morning, but she couldn’t sleep now. What if she woke to find herself back in that room, chains pinning her against the wall? Better to stay awake, but she recognized the exhaustion in her bones even as she thought of it.

Nightmares plagued her on occasion even when she didn’t have additional stressors. She had no desire to find out what she would dream of now.

The only proven solution to keep them at bay, or least so far, had been the nights that she and Klaus stayed together. She would be tempted to say just the feeling of another body in bed next to her was enough, but it seemed to be only him that kept them at bay.

Her own personal monster to scare the demons away.

Still, she didn’t know what she would do, waking up next to him. What if she thought he was the shade of who she’d experienced while held captive? If she were to have a nightmare, what if she revealed to him what she’d gone through?

_You must be very difficult to love._

Turning around, she crossed towards him and sat across from him on the bed. “Will you stay with me?” she finally asked, knowing that it would be for the best even if she still had reservations. 

Klaus was nodding before she finished the question, answering with a grave whisper, “I’ll never leave you.”

-x-

Over the coming days, Caroline called out sick to work. “I’ll have to compel them to let me come back after this much unscheduled time off,” she joked, but Klaus could find no humor in the situation.

He had yet to return to New Orleans. Elijah had everything handled, or so he was assured. Even if his brother was having difficulties managing their home, he could imagine nothing so urgent that would be able to turn his attention away from Caroline. 

She was getting better, however slowly, able to sleep through the night instead of waking fitfully every few hours. Still, every time that she saw Klaus, there was always a moment where she froze. She always recovered quickly, barely a hitch in her breath or a skipped heartbeat, but there was something about the sight of him that unnerved her. If Klaus wasn’t so used to being on the receiving end of that look from multiple people other than Caroline, he might not have recognized it.

She was afraid of him.

Or not of him, as she assured him every night that she wanted him to stay, but maybe of the thought of him. Of a false memory that she’d suffered under that spell. 

Whatever the reason, he was gentle with her. If she wanted to remain in Jackson, they would do so. In spite of his belief that she would be safer in New Orleans, he knew that she still wanted her freedom, that he would just be using this to bring her ever closer. 

No, until she asked, he would go in whatever direction that she pointed them towards.

Thus far, the days had been quiet, spent in the apartment in quiet companionship. Caroline didn’t question that steady supply of blood bags that showed up in her refrigerator, and Klaus in turn refrained from pressing her for answers before she was ready. So, it was nothing short of a surprise when Caroline pulled her coat from the hall closet and grabbed his as well, holding it out to him the way one might hold a grenade that had lost its ring.

“Let’s go take a walk,” she said, all forced cheer. “We can go to the park.”

He accepted his jacket, unwilling to discourage any sign of progress that she might show. “And what will we do at the park?”

With a frozen smile, she tore her gaze away from him and lost all of the confidence she had worn like armor only moments ago. “I can tell you about it. About what I saw,” she whispered, as though he would be able to refuse her.

-x-

On a park bench, she sat next to him and told him. All of it, through stops and starts and moments where her hand had clenched his so hard that she would have broken mortal bones. He stayed silent, quiet rage building inside him that mixed with sorrow for the pain she’d been through.

When Freya had looked through the spellwork more thoroughly, she had told him that the spell worked to find someone’s worst fear, but that it did so by creating a sense of betrayal. “Betrayal by the one she trusts most,” she’d said before going into the types of specifics he would have been interested if he were a witch. When he’d relayed the information to Caroline, she hadn’t seemed surprised.

“You’re not difficult to love. Not at all,” he stated when Caroline finished recounting everything.

The opposite, in fact. Even when he had tried to resist the pull he’d felt to her, it was undeniable. When they’d first met all those years ago, he remembered the attraction as instantaneous. Not a romantic attraction, that would grow with time, but a wonder at this girl who risked her life for friends who barely seemed to notice. 

She lifted the corners of her mouth in a weak attempt at a smile. “Aren’t I, though? There’s certainly enough evidence to the contrary.”

Klaus knew that she was thinking of her parents. Bill, the father who had tortured her when he discovered what she was, and Liz, the mother who had cautiously grown to accept her only to leave her alone in the world.

Taking his hand from hers, her wrapped his arm around her shoulders. He pulled her in close, relishing in how she went with none of the unease she showed towards him only a few days before. “Whenever I look at you, I am amazed at how wonderful you are. Your goodness, your loyalty, your devotion to those around you. If there is anyone on this earth who is easy to love, it is you, Caroline Forbes.”

Relief bloomed on her face, cautious as she let go of a breath. Her answering smile this time was genuine, if small, and her eyes were watery.

“It’s good to hear you say that. I think, sometimes, about how close I came to loosing you.” She dabbed at her eyes briefly and sunk further against him.

The very idea of it was almost laughable. “You could never lose me,” he assured her, because he could imagine no life without her, no life in which they hadn’t found each other.

A beat of silence passed between them, lingering until Caroline said, “I’ve never told you.” Her voice was heavy and resigned, and the tone of it put him on edge.

“Told me what?” he asked, mind already racing to think the worst.

She looked up at him and touched the side of his face almost thoughtfully. “When you broke your curse, you had to turn Elena’s aunt because you’d lost the initial sacrifices your witches found.” Tearing her gaze away, she continued, “I was supposed to be the vampire sacrifice. They kidnapped me, and I would have died there if Damon hadn’t saved me.”

The world seemed to slow down as he processed this. He’d never met Caroline before breaking the curse, had no idea who she was other than a friend of the doppelganger. 

For a terrible moment, he imagined it, imagined meeting terrified blue eyes under the full moon in the clearing that night. He would have ripped her heart from her chest with no knowledge of who she was, of what she would become to him.

“I don’t blame you,” she whispered, the words and the forgiveness given carefully.

If anything, that made it worse. She’s always been aware of the monster he is, but he had thought she was left untouched by his path of blood and war. To know that he had come so close to destroying the person who meant the most to him… He burned with emotion that overflowed, threatening to overwhelm.

“I would have killed you,” he said at last, feeling as though the words were torn from his throat.

The way that she bit her lip in acknowledgement told him that she knew, that she had always known how terrible he was, and that he had never been able to keep the secret of himself from her. 

How could she ever think that she could be hard to love? The only woman who had faith in the faithless; the only light in his life that was constant. 

A gust of wind blew hard, and Caroline shifted further into him on instinct, not hampered by fear or dread, instead of flinching away. “I love you,” she said at last, tired of running from it, tired of the decades they had spent apart, playing as though there could ever be another ending for them.

With wonder, he told her, “As I love you, and I’ll spend the rest of my life making sure you’re secure in that knowledge.”

Surely, there was more to say, but he found that he could think of nothing. Only the sweet relief that flooded him when she leaned forward to capture his lips in her own.

**Author's Note:**

> Please let me know if you enjoyed it!


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